Frankfurt Book Fair 2011: New Zealand publishers up the game

Peter Dowling reports from Frankfurt

On the final morning of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, many of the New Zealand exhibitors were to be found at the Sport-Club Frankfurt 1880, along with local Kiwis and embassy staff from Berlin, watching the All Blacks take on the Wallabies. That triumph was echoed in a small way by New Zealand at the fair. Back at the Frankfurt Messe on that same blissful Sunday, Iceland handed over the mantle of Guest of Honour to New Zealand; in 2012, our writers and publishers will be centre stage at the world’s largest book and media event.

Being the Ehrengast is a major opportunity: this year’s fair welcomed 283,000 visitors over five days, with 7,400 exhibitors from 106 countries. The New Zealand collective stand, which expanded to accommodate some 16 publishers, had a real buzz about it as German publishers in particular explored possibilities for translations for next year. There was a separate display of more New Zealand books, not to mention separate stands for Frankfurt-savvy publishers like David Bateman (celebrating its 25^th year at the fair).

Iceland managed to get over 100 of its works translated into German for the event; time is somewhat tighter for New Zealand, but the interest is there.

As a small publisher it was really encouraging for us to have German counterparts knocking on our door, and in our second year exhibiting at the fair to be able to consolidate some significant leads from 2010. Anne de Lautour and the Publishers Association of New Zealand have done a sterling job in bringing more books and authors to the fair, and this will multiply next year.

This is all the more helpful given the manifest depression of publishers and booksellers in the US, UK and Australia. By contrast, emerging markets are promising a lot – I attended upbeat events organised by Mexico and particularly Brazil, where the government has just launched a programme to support translations of its writers, to the tune of about NZ$750,000 a year.

Digital issues formed a part of most discussions I had at the fair. Interestingly enough, aside from the US, trade publishers pretty well everywhere else are investing in ebooks and digital repurposing but are not yet seeing significant sales. And even US trade publishers expressed scepticism about the extent of ebook sales just yet. Educational publishing is further along, however.

You couldn’t help but feel encouraged when the major Frankfurt daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, ran a full column report on Thursday’s press conference that launched New Zealand’s Guest of Honour programme. On Monday they managed the same coverage about the All Blacks victory. Now to turn this momentum into rights and co-edition sales …

Peter Dowling manages independent publisher Oratia Media (www.oratiamedia.com) and is publisher of its books programme, Libro International (www.librointernational.com)